Random Hardware topics

[Colif]

Almost a year ago I got 3 Noctua fans to replace chassis fans. At the time I was going to order Noctua rubber mounting bolts to use instead of screws but I got distracted by my new GPU and never thought of them.
Until the past weekend...
They weren't what I was expecting

I figured I could just use them like screws, but instead they need to be attached to fan first and then the case, so I need to remove the fans instead of just replacing the screw one at a time.

Its funny, one year ago in December I was messing with Noctua fans, now I will be again... I was messing with fans on Xmas day. Not this time.
I did think of one thing I wish I had thought of before. I lowered the rear exhaust so its not competing with the top fan for air, less noise from either.

Bolts not installed yet, I do that on weekend since It requires removing the fans.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I've got an older NH-D15S and considered picking up the Chromax covers for it and another Redux fan for exhaust. I dont have a case window so its pretty pointless, but looks nice and at least I would know it was there.

Maybe I'll just grab a nice walnut wood space bar and WASD instead, nice.

 

[Colif]

i like my space bar as it is... its special already - https://nuphy.com/products/ghostbar
Its the quietest key I have now. though its not by a lot. its more a dull thud.
nice to know I can buy a replacement anytime, and in different colors...

Wish I had moved fans down before buying the bolts. They much quieter now. Might use them on the top fan but rear seems happier now.

 

[Why_Me]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-series SUPER: Review Schedule and Availability Confirmed

Last week, we got our first whiff of the availability dates of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 40-series SUPER line of high-end graphics cards. A leaked NVIDIA launch schedule screengrab by VideoCardz confirms those dates, and sheds a bit more light on when you can expect previews, reviews, and...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Colif]

 

[Colif]

Be careful what internal drives you buy..

seems fake drives have advanced to actually making sata ssd and still spoofing the amounts to look bigger than they are. Hardware getting too cheap if they go to this amount of work to scam people

Careful who you trust with your purchases.

 

[Colif]

Nvidia turns back to sheer the sheep too stupid to buy an alternative

First two "games" are just walking simulators anyway. 3rd is just a graphics demonstration.

Way of the future - less game, more graphics. One day game play will just be a myth

 

[Colif]

That isn't how it works. If you buy a card one year and then 2 years later a new one is released for less, you don't suddenly lose money. You got to use that other card for 2 years without waiting. You also had no idea new one was coming.

Also, old cards get replaced? No one told me... I thought my Voodoo 2 was all I ever needed.

Also, I question the long term winning status of a GPU with 12gb of VRAM compared to one with 24gb.

3090 & 3090 Ti Graphics Cards

TITAN class performance for the ultimate in gaming.

www.nvidia.com

Might make for some interesting comparison videos in coming years.... which is a waste of money?

It only wins in RT

He said one thing right "RT isn't going anywhere"... it seems stuck in the mud now.

 

[Colif]

Not a surprise really, first CPU was in fact in a military vehicle... F14 flight computer. Unlike the 4004, it wasn't made to be in a calculator.

 

[neogunhero]

I’ve posted on this thread I believe in the past about slow download speeds. It seemed to stem from my disk usage on the SSD dropping, causing the download to stop because the disk wasn’t writing the data.

I found a solution to my problem in a Reddit comment of all things. The problem I was having was Write-Caching. Basically from what I understand due to my SSD not having DRAM, it moves the data it’s downloading to my normal RAM before moving it to the SSD rather than direct to the SSD’s DRAM. So this is what was causing my slow download because it was having to move the data from the RAM to the SSD, truthfully I’m not really sure but this is what Co-Pilot is telling me haha.

Anyways, disabling Write-Caching helped me maintain a constant 29mb/s download speed. The downside is apparently with that disabled, if Windows doesn’t shut down cleanly due to something like a power outage, you run the risk of complete data loss. Well guess who had a power outage last night while gaming? I was so terrified but luckily everything was okay. As soon as the power went out I unplugged the PC from the wall before flipping the breaker back on so that may have also helped it not surge. Needless to say I immediately turned it back on and will only turn it off if I need to download a game.

 

[Colif]

if Windows doesn’t shut down cleanly due to something like a power outage, you run the risk of complete data loss.

My understanding is you would only lose any data not already saved. Not everything on the computer as that is unlikely - thats not how windows works, it doesn't run entirely out of ram or need to load itself completely to work. All you lose is anything created since last start.

Windows 10/11 only save things to disk on shutdown, or if you need the ram. If you open a program and close it, windows will compress the data into ram and only write to storage if you shutting off or it needs space. It is much faster to decompress data in ram than to read from storage.

(Unexpected restarts can break windows but thats more a question of corrupted boot files in most cases)

ltt suggests turning it off, but it could actually be helping. It is possible people are confusing OS level write caching and Disk level write caching... I am assuming its 2nd

Is it a good idea to disable "write caching on the device" in windows 7?

Is it a good idea to disable "write caching on the device" in windows 7? Right now write caching is enabled (which was apparently the default). I am working on a 90 pound weakling, a small Acer l...

superuser.com

glad all my ssd have cache.

 

[Colif]

AMD Fluid Motion Frames released at driver level with Adrenalin version 24.1.1

AFMF can be enabled for any DirectX® 11 and 12 title using HYPR-RX.

• AFMF may introduce additional latency to games and may not offer the optimal experience for fast-paced competitive titles. AFMF is recommended to be combined with AMD Radeon™ Anti-Lag to reduce in-game latency while maintaining a minimum in-game fps of 60.
• AFMF, must be manually enabled in the per-game settings for certain fast-paced competitive titles, even if AFMF was already enabled globally. Gamers are free to enable AFMF in these titles based on their preference and gameplay style.
• AFMF may be enabled or disabled on the fly using the default hotkey of Alt-Shift-G.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-24-1-1

Now just to find a game to test it on. Since it works in almost all of them now, I have a fair amount of choice.

 

[Colif]

Wait two years for a 4080 Super...
Get a 4080 for $200 less.
bonus

 

[Colif]

5800x3d 10% better but price difference isn't 10%.

If I was still waiting for price drop on 5800x3d I might have got one of these.

 

[Colif]

Userbenchmark, a website that is a good source of humour

and until recently, was a good place to run a benchmark to test PC ability, has gone and shot self in foot.

They have somehow attached a logon requirement to their benchmark tool and now if you run it, you get a Server Full error and it gives two choices... userbenchmark Pro or Quit.

I can't find anything about it anywhere apart from other people noticing it

Has UserBenchMark changed operating mode?

I have been trying to measure a PC and also a laptop that I have been friggin' around with using over the holidays and I thought I would use UserBenchMark to see how they compared, however I always get a 'server full' message and the tests wont run :( Is anyone else seeing this behaviour, do...

www.elevenforum.com

And according to Google the file is under a freeware licence. So something odd going on.

Perhaps all the criticism from everywhere finally got through. They are convinced EVERY other review site are AMD shills. They banned from being mentioned on Intel Subreddit. That should tell you everything, when even your heroes reject you.

 

[Brian Boru]

Don't dry iPhone in rice

Don't dry your iPhone in a bag of rice, says Apple

The popular remedy risks "small particles" entering the phone and causing damage, new advice says.

www.bbc.com

 

[Colif]

I wonder what temps I can get on this PC in winter
its only 8c outside right now and my CPU running silly cold

CPU cores - 24c
CPU package (sensor outside CPU) - 32c
Nvme - 44c
GPU - 36c

I couldn't take screenshot as action raised temp...

Curious what temps I will get to in winter.

AIO fans just running normal speed, slower in fact. I wonder if I can get below 20c in winter... that would be crazy since the last PC I saw that low was on my 4690k. 16c is lowest I seen in a pc. Only 8c away on a Ryzen is pretty nuts. I wasn't expecting to see it this low again.

 

[Brian Boru]

^ That's a neat Taskbar readout ^

 

[Colif]

^ That's a neat Taskbar readout ^

if you insist:

Download HWINFO - https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

when you open the app, click the tick box next to show sensors only, and click run
in the next window, click on the gear icon in bottom right, this opens settings.

On General tab, under polling period, set it to 500 and click the set button next to it, and click OK. this reduces the amount of time between sensors updating so its more accurate and you can watch CPU fall and rise all day.

I used tips from this video to set up icons in toolbar to track two temps but not the ones he chooses, I went with Core Temperatures instead of the package temp

Core Temperatures is average temp of all cores and ignores the constant spike of a core being woken up every second or so.
If you want to know actual speed of CPU at any one time, the best to watch is Core Effective Clock

Another thing you can do it set it up so it shows graphs of scores you are interested in and can watch onscreen. you can do this via right clicking a sensor value in main menu

and they show like below:

There are OSD controls as well but I don't use those so I am sure there are guides on internet for those now, or perhaps even on Tom's

you might have to choose different sensors on your Intel system, I haven't got one to tell you which.
the one for the nvme is actually a different program - https://www.hdsentinel.com/ but I could probably use HWINFO there as well.

 

[Colif]

One shortcoming of my new keyboard and the way I use it is, its got 4 green rubber feet on the bottom of the keyboard and twice now I have found one of them on my bed and its fallen off the keyboard. I know eventually it won't go back on, I wonder how I can fix it. Probably glue but I might ask the makers for ideas.

I don't really need them but still.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Its a really nice keyboard that, making me feel like maybe I need to do something with mine.

Been considering some walnut keycaps still, go nicely with the front of my case.

 

[Colif]

i have found I need to run it wired to get it to respond all the time, but cable isn't that bad and as its usb I could use another cable.Apart from that its been fine.

 

[Colif]

A foot of my keyboard fell off and I have yet to find it. It can't have gone far, keyboard doesn't go very far itself... need to clean room and it will show up

 

[Brian Boru]

A foot of my keyboard fell off and I have yet to find it.

Aw man, that's the drawback with these ergonomic modular KBs, gotta keep all the bits together. So a foot must be 2/3 of it, leaving you with 30-35 keys to use—but hey, as long as you have WASD, spacebar and F1, you're good for a while.

 

[blutsband]

z790 motherboard pricing is madness €300 for an Asus Prime -P here. . They've moved HEDT pricing to the Z series.